Nick Clegg
Nick Clegg
Nicholas William Peter Cleggis a British Liberal Democrat politician who was the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Lord President of the Council from 2010 to 2015 in the Cameron coalition ministry. Clegg was the Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2007 to 2015 and has been the Member of Parliamentfor Sheffield Hallam since 2005...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth7 January 1967
dirty naughty hands
I don't even pretend we can occupy the Lib Dem holier-than-thou, hands-entirely-clean-and-entirely-empty-type stance. No, we are getting our hands dirty, and inevitably and totally understandably we are being accused of being just like any other politicians.
ambition keys leader
I didn't become leader to transform the Liberal Democrats into an enlarged form of the Electoral Reform Society. It's not the be all and end all for us. There are other very, very key ambitions in politics, not least social mobility and life chances, that I care about as passionately if not more.
party two political
One thing I have frankly decided is that when it comes to political reform we have two conservative parties in British politics. Both the Labour and Conservative parties have constantly and repeatedly failed to honour promises they have made about reforming, cleaning, modernising our clapped-out system.
blue media political
You have a political and media elite who have an idiom by which they describe politics. It's highly, highly polarised. It's right, left, red, blue, up, down, victorious, crushed.
jobs kids insecure
One of the big changes in politics has been because families, individuals, have felt worried, insecure... worried about the economy, worried about their jobs, worried about their kids' futures... actually the disconnect between the public and media discourse and people's everyday concerns has become bigger not smaller.
government order doe
Any government, of whatever composition, needs to mobilise opinion way beyond its own ranks in order to do the difficult things that it does.
dad want strict
I am quite strict as a dad but I don't want to be censorious.
thinking government attention
I think that the days when newspaper barons could basically click their fingers and governments would snap to attention have gone.
home london sheffield
Our Sheffield and London homes are worth well over a million but the bank owns most of them - we are mortgaged up to the gills.
Politics is a highly tribal business.
party arrogance nasty
The Labour Party has become consumed by collective bile towards... the Liberal Democrats. That portrays a rather nasty arrogance.
years work-out perspective
Although I am a young leader, I actually came to it strangely quite late. I have a different perspective, partly because of my family, partly because of what I did for ten years: negotiating trade deals, working out in Central Asia doing assistance projects.
morning believe start-the-day
Do I get up every morning and ask: am I doing the things that I believe in and am I doing them for the best possible motives? Yes. Unambiguously yes.
believe commitment gay
I genuinely believe that we will look back on today as a landmark for equality in Britain ... No matter who you are and who you love, we are all equal. Marriage is about love and commitment, and it should no longer be denied to people just because they are gay.